Ian Ridpath

Many of today's amateur stargazers learned their way around the night sky with the observing guides of Ian Ridpath. Among these are The Monthly Sky Guide, now in its 9th edition; the Collins Stars and Planets Guide (known in the US as the Princeton Field Guide to Stars and Planets), now in its 4th edition; and Collins Gem Stars. All these have been continuously in print for over 25 years. A particular interest of Ian's is the Greek and Roman myths myths of the constellations, which he wrote about in his book Star Tales.

Ian is editor of the authoritative Oxford Dictionary of Astronomy and the last three editions of Norton's Star Atlas, the longest-established star atlas in the world and reputedly the best-known. He is a major contributor to the Dorling Kindersley encyclopedia Universe, and is author of Dorling Kindersley's Eyewitness Companion to Astronomy. In 2012 he won the Astronomical Society of the Pacific's Klumpke-Roberts Award for "outstanding contributions to the public understanding and appreciation of astronomy", the most prestigious award of its kind.

He is also a leading UFO skeptic and is well-known for his investigation and explanation of Britain's leading UFO case, the Rendlesham Forest Incident.

For more about Ian Ridpath, see his personal websitehttp://www.ianridpath.comand his entry in Wikipediahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Ridpath

Support pages for Ian Ridpath's books in print can be found herehttp://www.ianridpath.com/books/support.htm

Author Updates

Join me in search of the northern lights in Norway this coming February (2012) aboard the Hurtigruten ship MS Midnatsol. Inspired partly by Joanna Lumley’s evocative BBC TV programme, more people than ever are travelling north to see what is widely regarded as one of the most spectacular phenomena in nature.These luminous wisps and curtains of light tripping like phantoms across the polar skies are caused by atomic particles from the Sun bombarding the Earth’s upper atmosphere and making it glow

The annual feast of astronomy called AstroFest is just a week away, and I for one can’t wait. We have probably the most exciting and varied programme ever, which is saying something given the quality of recent line-ups.
http://www.astronomynow.com/astrofest/

The Saturday afternoon session is already sold out – no doubt something to do with Professor Brian Cox, the poster boy for astronomy in the UK. As well as his talk on the Big Bang, Brian will be signing copies of Wonder

Two talks this month, both on UFOs – a subject I occasionally write about but rarely talk about since some deeply sensitive souls get upset when told there’s nothing to it.The first is at the Fortean Times UnConvention on October 23. I’m told this is a great event but have never been before. The speaker line-up certainly looks impressive. I’m particularly looking forward to seeing Helen Keen’s presentation, It IS Rocket Science. At the end of the second day, I am apparently doing a UFO-bashing s

I’m giving two talks in September. The first is on Tuesday September 14 when I’ll be opening this season’s series of lunchtime lectures at the Royal Astronomical Society in Burlington House. The subject is Comets, in which I’ll be explaining how astronomers learned the true nature of these ghostly visitors to our skies and how they helped us understand the Universe about us. I’ll end by looking forwards to the approach of comet Hartley 2, which should be visible with binoculars or even the naked

AS its 30th anniversary approaches, the world-famous Rendlesham Forest UFO Incident, widely regarded by UFO enthusiasts as among the top ten cases in the world, appears to lie in tatters following a series of damaging revelations and reversals.Most of us, of course, thought the case was dead and buried in the late 1990s when James Easton, a dogged researcher now sadly retired from UFOlogy, obtained and published the statements made by the military personnel who were involved in the first night o